The Orthodox Church commemorates the holy Archangel Michael and the entire Heavenly Host on November 8/21. The entire human race benefits greatly from this feast, not only Orthodox Christians. Why is that so? First and foremost, this event teaches us how to perceive the issue of equality and inequality appropriately.
Since the turn of the 20th century, especially, mankind has been ardently seeking out a kind of equality that is meant to exist on earth. This concept has mostly hurt Russia, with other nations following. Of course, the promised equality has never been realized, but conventional political structures have been overthrown. The final stronghold of global Orthodoxy, the Orthodox monarchy, was destroyed in Russia, and innumerable people were killed on the terrible altar of false equality.
What connection does this have to the banquet of the Heavenly Host? really direct Humanity would notice that even among the holy angels in heaven, there is not the meaningless equality that the godless rant so furiously about if they looked up more often and were less drawn to fleeting earthly concepts. As in all of God’s creation, there is a clear hierarchy that He has built in the world of the angels.
This blessed inequity and hierarchical subordination bind the whole system together. If they were eliminated, the building would crumble. The revolt started by the highest and most powerful angel, Lucifer, who from that point on became the father of all those fighting for equality who truly fight against God, led to a partial annihilation of the angels’ heavenly assembly.
